Only One Thing: Love and A Good Hair Day

You know what your hair looks like in the morning.
It's everywhere, sticking up in all directions--bunched up, knotted.
And one of the first things you do is to run a brush through the mess.
Bet you didn't know it was like the Spirit giving love.

Let's start here:
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.--Galatians 5:21

The fruit.
Not fruits.  One thing.
Love IS joy, IS peace, IS patience, and all the rest.
All connected, all imparted at the same time from the Spirit.

 And it all comes from love.
God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us.--Romans 5:5

The Spirit is the one Source from which we example all the ways that changed who we once were into someone God now recognizes as His own, remade in His image.
Obedient divine love transforms the tangled mess of our life into the reflection of God Himself.

When God sends His Spirit, He gives us the one thing, the only thing, that tames our wild disarray of sin.
We slept in sin, and in the process made a mess of our life, but when morning came, the Spirit greeted us with the light of new life and love.

Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.--Ephesians 5:14
...only one thing is needed, and it will not be taken away from her.--Luke 10:42

We should see, when we look in the mirror, not the disheveled head of sin, but the beautifully adorned image of our God.
And that is a good hair day indeed.

Sniffing Does't Work

I get lots of inspirations from God.  Don't you?
And, boy, do they look good.
All of them.
Start a Bible study.  Go on a retreat.  Take Aunt Mabel shopping.  Write a book.

They take me in all kinds of directions.--first one way, then another.
I work, and work, and sometimes very little gets done.
It feels like I'm sniffing my way around, looking for the right scent.
I feel frustrated, scattered, wasted.
Is anything getting accomplished?  Do my efforts produce anything of value?

Satan provides inspiration, too, and he doesn't worry about how many ideas or "inspirations" we have, or how many plans we make, as long as nothing gets done. 

God's way looks different.
Whether you turn to the right and to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way.  Walk in it.--Isaiah 30:21

God always tells us the way to go.  Are we listening?
How often do I forsake a smaller, obvious good in favor of a vague future that looks better but never comes to pass? 
God's vision doesn't ever look like ours.
It often looks smaller, less ambitious, than the ones we sniff at so ardently, but it is, in the end, straighter.

Each one went straight ahead.  Wherever the Spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.--Ezekiel 1:12

A dog smells his way and, in the process, gets constantly distracted.
We are to watch and listen for God to go before us, then follow not our nose, but Him.

Being Beethoven

"How do I know God's will?" she asked me.
"How can I be sure I am doing what He wants me to do?"
Good question.

Anything we do, God Himself can do better, so what, after all, does God want from us?
And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8

Yes, yes, I know that. But what to DO?
God gives us stuff to do not because He needs us to get it done for Him, but because He wants us to seek Him in it.

Seek Him first, last, and always...then do what seems right until we can't do it any more.

Don't concentrate on the result. 
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.--Isaiah 55:9

Do what God gives us to do because He gave it.  
He manages the result.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.--1Corinthians 3:61
We cultivate devotion to God.  He brings in the harvest.

Beethoven was nearly deaf when he composed his ninth symphony.  He never heard it, but he wrote it, and conducted it, with such genius and fervor that almost everyone recognizes its Ode to Joy:

God asks us, too, to play the notes even when we can't hear the music.
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.  I will sing and make music.  Awake, my soul.  Awake, harp and lyre.  I will awaken the dawn.--Psalm 57:71
Play on, and our love for God becomes our true song.

Now Where Was I?

My husband does not want me to use herbicides.
But I want a perfect, weedless garden.
For 30 years, we have wrangled about this.
It needs to stop.

But how?  Nobody wants to give in.  We both think we are right and, from our own perspectives, we are.  After all, no biblical principle hinges on whether I spray Roundup on the creeping charlie.
Or does it?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.--Matthew 5:3,5
A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.--Proverbs 29:23
I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.--Isaiah 57:15

Think about it.
What makes us really humble?
Is it bowing and shuffling when someone tells me that I have done something well?  No.  That makes me secretly proud.
Am I humbled when I experience defeat after striving to do or learn something?  No.  As often as not, that simply spurs me on to try harder next time.

But obedience, now that breeds humility.
Doing what someone else wants, not what I want, when I know my idea or plan is just as valid as theirs.  Setting aside my own will in situations where all I sacrifice is me.
That's humility.

Of course, I should never set aside my holiness, my love and devotion to God, but all else can be well lost.

And it feels nasty.
Is not my opinion or desire of value?
Of course it is.  That's why setting it aside takes so much effort.
I am humbled by giving up my will not because it has no validity, but because it does.

Some positions are not important enough to fight over.
But they make great tools by which to learn holiness.

Obedience in these issues is how I push aside the extraneous parts of me, how I enter into the holy of holies, where my humanity takes a back seat to God's supremacy.

Humility was never about my position before other men.  
It was always about my position before God.
And, as it turns out, pulling weeds.
I am always with you.  You hold me by my right hand.--Psalms 73:23

Beyond the Bandaid

I am concerned about my son.
No--that's not right.
Just say it.
I'm worried about him.

Never mind why.  The reason doesn't much matter because he's a grown man and I can't do much about it.
But that doesn't stop the love.  Or the worry.

In fact, his maturity increases the concern because my ability to influence his situation decreases with his increasing age.
Unlike when he scraped his knee falling off a bike or when little Jimmy took a poke at him on the playground, I can't kiss away his hurt.
I can't fix it.
And parents are fixers.

So what do I do?  God has some advice:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life, so that you and your children may live...Deuteronomy 30:19a

I want life and blessings for my children, but I can't get them by fixing their hurts and problems.  I do it by choosing God.

Can I bring my sons practical help?  Sure.  In fact, I should.
But that help is only a bandaid in the larger scheme of things.

My choosing God, however--walking with Him before my children and the world--gives God the opportunity He craves to do what only He can do.

How do I know this?  He told me:
Listen to His voice and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life.--Deuteronomy 30:19b

Choosing God first will probably alter the kind of bandaid I apply to my son's owie.
Choosing God first may open the wound farther so He can clean it out properly.
But choosing God brings real healing and everlasting life.
And that is what a mother ultimately wants for her sons.

Pleasure and Pleasant Places

The world is big and wonderful and full of cool stuff--stuff God made specifically for us to use.  And, as I've already said, (Don't Blame the Apple) God declared it all good.  All of it.  He did not stutter.

But--yes, there's a but--He also sends a caution.

I can, in good conscience, enjoy everything God made so long as I do nothing sinful,
I can do all of this,  but...
...not everything is beneficial.  Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive.--1Corinthians 10:23

God wants us to enjoy what He made, but these pleasures should only sweeten the straight way, like berries that line our road to heaven.  We may pick and enjoy them, but we are not to stray from the straight path to over-fill our bucket.  God made the berries and they are yummy,
but they are only pleasant, not necessary.

God promised to thrill us with what He has made.
But even He, when He walked the earth, never failed to remember the goodness of the Lord, not the pleasure of  living, as most important.  We must do likewise.

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

The trick for us is to find both the Lord's goodness and what is beneficial among the world's welcome pleasures without letting our focus stray.  We have to hold on to the loving Lord who made all of these pleasures, and not gather closely the all-too-sweet world that offers so many of them.

Pleasures exist so that we use them, not for us to be used by them.
That's why it's called self-control.
Pick your berries, but stay in charge.

Don't Blame the Apple

Christians don't drink.
They don't smoke either, or eat too much, or talk too much, or spend too much.
I can find Bible verses to back these up.
And every one of them would bear a degree of truth, but I would be missing the point.

Our God made the world and everything in it.  And He said it was what?
He said it was good.  All of it.
He made wine, and tobacco, and lots of yummy food, and the ability to speak, and wealth.
He did not make a mistake when He did it.
He wants us to find pleasure in what He made.

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work.  This, too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or drink or find enjoyment?--Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

But, this is the point that we usually miss when we talk about drinking or smoking or any of the rest.
God wants us to find pleasure in what He made for us to use, but He wants more than that for us to find pleasure in Him and to use His creation to bring Him glory.

The Bible tells us not to get drunk, not to give in to gluttony, and not to gossip or defame because these things can never bring God glory.
Asserting, however, that all strong drink or all of a certain kind of food or a particular association is wrong for every Christian will not make us holy.  It can, if we are not careful, make us Pharisees.

 You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces.  You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.--Matthew 23:13


Obedient worship makes us holy.  Loving God more than anything or anyone else makes us holy.
Abstaining from strong drink does not protect our faith.  Following God does.
If that means, for you, abstaining from strong drink, then well and good.  If that means, for you, never eating a donut, that's fine.  If your cigarette separates you from God then, for sure, put it down.  But remember that doing so will not make you a good Christian.  Only loving God will.

God told Adam and Eve that they couldn't eat the apple not because there was anything wrong with the apple, but because it was more important that they want what God wanted.  
Apples are good.  Ignoring God is not.
Wine is good.  Tobacco is good.  God said so.
They exist because God wanted them for us.
But more than that, He wants our love and respect and worship.

We can use God's stuff as long as we can use it in His name for His purpose--to bring Him glory, to love Him properly.
If we cannot use something of His creation to honor Him, then, indeed, it is time to put it aside.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.--1Corinthinans 10:31